Chapter 19: Don't Forget, I Am God After All
"This is a walkthrough I'm serializing on the school forum."
Katsuragi Keima's voice rang out calmly, as if he were introducing an academic paper.
"Huh?"
"A walkthrough. Do you not know what a 'walkthrough' means? It refers to—"
"I know, I know. What I can't understand is why you are writing such a thing?"
Horikita Suzune looked at Keima with a face full of astonishment.
"You should know, right? Our school has its own dedicated forum website."
As he spoke, he swiped the screen to display the forum interface. "It's quite strange, though. There isn't a gaming section on it."
"It would be strange if there was one!"
Keima completely ignored her retort, pushed up his glasses, and continued in that matter-of-fact tone: "Precisely because I discovered the lack of a gaming section, I posted the walkthroughs for the games I've already cleared. I even received a donation yesterday."
"A donation?"
"It wasn't much, only 1,000 points, but it proves a few things."
Keima's fingertip tapped the screen, pulling up a transfer record interface. "For instance, points can be freely traded between different individuals. The forum has a built-in point transfer function. This is very interesting—the school clearly tolerates or even encourages this flow of resources between individuals."
Horikita Suzune's brow furrowed. She hadn't actually studied all the functions of the student terminal in detail, and she had only given the forum a cursory glance. But if what Katsuragi Keima said was true...
"However, since the number of people on the internal school forum is limited, those who play games are few and far between," Keima continued. His fingers performed a few more rapid operations, switching to an external website interface. "So, I also posted the walkthrough on social media. Look, this is the guide for Summer Love Song I posted yesterday; it already has over three hundred replies."
"Wait a minute."
Horikita's voice became serious.
"You posted it on social media? You should be aware of the rule that we cannot communicate with the outside world, right? The student handbook explicitly states: 'Any form of contact
with personnel outside the school is prohibited, including but not limited to correspondence, mailing items, and receiving external packages'—"
"Do you actually not know?"
Keima interrupted her, a glint of something bordering on pity flashing in his eyes behind the lenses. "The rule restricts 'communication,' which refers to a two-way exchange of information. I am merely sharing information unilaterally without replying to any comments. This does not constitute 'communication.'"
He paused, his finger lightly tapping the power button on the side of the terminal. "Otherwise, why do you think the school equipped us with terminals and computers capable of connecting to the internet? If they truly wanted total isolation, they could have just used an intranet system. But the fact is, we can access a portion of external websites—'they' are permitted by the school."
Horikita fell silent. She truly hadn't considered this issue. Upon enrollment, she had simply accepted the "closed management" setting as a matter of course without thinking deeply about where the boundaries of the rules lay.
She had to acknowledge Keima's thinking ability once again. "You're really good at finding loopholes in the rules."
"Don't you think..." Keima suddenly leaned in a bit closer and lowered his voice. "That our school has too many loopholes? Or rather, these loopholes were intentionally set for us to exploit?"
His gaze landed on the surveillance cameras in the corner of the classroom; those small black hemispheres were turning silently.
"What?"
"Just like a game. Some things look like bugs, but in reality, they are mechanics. You can only clear the game efficiently by utilizing them."
Having said this, Keima sat upright again and shifted his attention back to the terminal. On the screen, the walkthrough page he posted last night had refreshed with several new comments:
[Anonymous User]: What an incredible guide! I searched for three days and couldn't trigger that hidden ending in Chapter 7. It turns out you have to go to the library three times on a rainy day... I'm unworthy!
[Walking in the Rain]: Every single emotional value change is listed?! Is this even humanly possible?!
[Passerby A]: Someone actually made a full guide for such a niche game? The author must be a god! Donated 500 points, please accept my bow!
Keima nodded with satisfaction, then clicked on the article he had just finished editing and pressed the publish button. The title of the new guide appeared on the forum's front page. Almost instantly, the view count began to jump—10, 50, 100...
The follower count of his newly created account was also rising at a rate visible to the naked eye. In his original world, Keima was a god-like existence revered in the galgame community. Although he had to start from scratch in this world, Keima had the confidence to create the same myth.
The only pity was that while the school had internet access, the accessible sites were quite limited. Keima hadn't found a site specifically for gaming, so he could only choose to publish articles on the most common social media platform, which had sections for makeup, food, travel, and news.
Keima was somewhat curious about who the bloggers with the most followers on this social media were, so he clicked into the blogger rankings sorted by follower count and popularity.
"How is it that there isn't a single gaming blogger on the rankings? It seems I, the God of Conquest, must take action."
The corners of Keima's mouth turned up slightly. It was then that he noticed the avatar of one particular blogger.
Username: Shizuku.
The follower count was quite staggering. Keima clicked in, and what met his eyes was a series of beautiful girl gravure photos. Keima wasn't particularly interested in real-world beauties, but at this moment, his brow twitched slightly.
Because those photos were incredibly familiar—they were almost exactly the same as a certain "character card illustration" in the deck Elsie had given him.
Sakura Airi.
This person... is Sakura Airi?!
Keima looked closely at the update date of the latest post; it was the day before they started school, and there had been no updates for the past two days. Combined with Sakura Airi mentioning her hobby of photography...
It matched. Everything matched!
So, Sakura Airi was a gravure internet celebrity? And one with quite high popularity at that...
However, whether it was the card illustration or the online photos, they were quite different from the usual Sakura Airi.
'As expected, she's the type of girl with a huge gap between her internal and external personas.
Whatever, forget it. The most important thing is still to play games.'
Keima immediately picked up his game console again, returning to his daily routine state.
Just then, a heavy set of footsteps sounded at the door. A tall man walked into the classroom.
"My name is Mashima Tomonari. I am the homeroom teacher for Class A, and I will also be your English teacher."
A thick, low voice echoed through the classroom.